Dear1 Dear2

Yeah… We have our sofa bed. Hohohoho… It has really been a long while since we started shopping for a sofa bed, and now we finally bought it. It is apple green in colour, 3 seater sofa, opens up to be somewhere between a super single and a queen size bed, sleeping 2 people shouldn’t be a problem. Well, actually we bought it a month ago, just that I haven’t gotten down to writing it here. Hehe…

After months of desperate search for a sofa bed, we finally bought ours for $400 (included Gst and delivery) at K & D Furniture Trading, their warehouse showroom somewhere in Kaki Bukit. We were introduced to this company by a friend, and it turns out that their selection of furniture was not bad, and in fact a little bit unique, not the everyday furniture you see at local neighbourhood shops. But still, their goods come from China, so dun expect European quality. Not to mention we received a small discount by virtue that we were recommended by a friend. Yeah…

We’ve been to quite a few places to search for a sofa bed, but nothing really comes close. Not Ikea, Courts, Harvey Norman, IMM, Seahorse, etc… What was rather surprising about this shop that we bought our sofa bed from was that they had lots and lots sofa beds to choose from, easily more than 20 varieties. But only 2 were on display, the rest were in the catalog. Our was chosen from the catalog.

The sofa bed is currently in our study room. One of the main purpose of this sofa bed is to act as a sleeping place for guest, or simply a guest bed. But when there are no guests, it can be folded up into a sofa setting and save space in the study room. Now, who are the guests that we’re expecting? Well, maybe our relatives might want to stay over for a night (however unlikely that may sound). But mainly, its for our friends who we invite over for overnight mahjong, or movie marathon or gaming.

Eventhough I mentioned folding it into sofa mode to save space, I’m now thinking of leaving it permanently in bed mode. Haha… Why? Because it just feels great knowing that there’s a bed in the study room as well. This way, I can walk around the house, take a nap in the master bedroom, relax on the living room sofa, or I can walk to the study room and lie down on the sofa bed. Sounds really cosy and relaxing ya? Alright, I shall do just that.

-Dear1

Last weekend, we went down to Ikea again, to look for furnishing ideas. We’re really lacking the sofa bed in our study room, nearly everything else is already in place. But then, owing to some horror stories about Ikea sofa beds, we decided that we shall not buy a sofa bed from Ikea, but rather just there for ideas. Additionally, we’re also looking out for shoe racks. But again, owing to some horror experience of the Ikea shoe rack at my old clubroom, I’m unwilling to buy any shoe rack from there. So basically, we’re just there to look for ideas, not really keen on buying anything. But it’s the Ikea annual warehouse sale, so there’s definitely something worth buying, right?

In the end, we came back with 4 fold-up cardboard boxes to help us organize our cupboards. A magnetic notice board. A set of 4 small squarish mirrors. And a pair of Grono Lamps, medium and large size. When we were paying for the goods, we suddenly realize that Ikea isn’t giving out plastic bags. Oh yeah… they’re supporters of the environmental friendly bag program. But I find it quite unreasonable for them to just scan-and-ignore. The cashier that served us simply scan the barcodes for our goods, put them aside and collected the payment and promptly moved on to the next customer. I think the least that she could have done is ask whether or not we require a plastic bag. But that was not the case. We had to ask her for a plastic bag, with which she gave us a stare and reached out her hand, saying, “5 cent for small one, 10 cent for bag one.” -_- We paid 10 cents for a big one. Money is not the issue, it’s the poor attitude.

Upon reaching home, we eagerly unwrapped our Grono Lamps. The idea is, the medium on in our bedroom on the bedside table. The large on in the living room on the Tv console. This way, we can create a continuity that extends from the living room to the bedroom and make the whole house a coherent theme. But alas, that was not to be. The large lamp was broken. The lamps were wrapped in cupboard boxes and we did not checked them after paying for it. But seriously, not many people will take out their large item goods to check until they reach home. This episode taught us to check items whenever possible to avoid the hassle of making another trip down just to exchange the item. Luckily, Ikea boasts a 30 day exchange policy. So I guess I’ll be making another trip down there sometime soon. Until then, the romantic bedside lamp will have to wait.

-Dear1

It’s been about half a year since we start living in this house. We’re not heavy users of aircon so in these roughly (365/2=) 182 days, we’ve probably turn the master bedroom aircon on for less than 20 times. One day recently, the aircon doesn’t seem to be blowing out cold air. At first we thought it’s becos of the hot hot hot weather outside and heat exchange near the windows, so we decided to turn the temperature down further. We normally sleep at 23 degrees, but we turn it down to 20 degrees. However, through the night, the air begins to feel stuffy, so we knew something was probably wrong with the aircon unit.

The next day, we decided to turn on the air con again becos it is so hot. Similarly, the stuffiness became apparent late at night. But this time, there was something else, a strange cracking sound. Being very bothered and worried, we decided to switch the aircon off and check what’s happening. Upon opening the aircon cover, we discovered that the interior is all frozen! And the exterior is gathering some water droplets eventhough the water hasn’t started dripping yet. Something is seriously wrong.

We decide to test out the other aircon units in our System 3 to verify the problem. After enjoying the living room air con for about 3 to 4 hours, we checked its interior and found not sign of ice formation. And it cools quite quickly without the stuffiness. Therefore, something is definitely wrong with the master bedroom aircon. Hence, we called the manufacturers, LG.

They came down for a check and found out there nothing was wrong with the aircon unit nor the compressor unit, but there was a significant decrease in gas given our low usage. Therefore, it’s suspected that there is a pipe leakage somewhere and we need to call the renovators down to repair it. The LG technicians further explained that a normally working aircon unit should not form ice. When ice is formed, it could be due to a faulty blower, prolonged usage without proper maintainence, or a leaking pipe. So our case is most probably a leaking pipe.

So I’ve just contacted our renovator and they should be here in a few weeks time becos our renovator’s showroom is being renovated right now. Then, I’ll probably get both the aircon unit party and the renovator party to be here together so they can discuss and solve the problem directly. Everything is still under warranty.

Sometimes when it comes to these warranty, it can be really confusing who’s taking care of which portion. Sigh… Why can’t a single agent be in charge of the whole system. Just like another time, I had problem with my ceiling fan and called the installers down to take a look. After examining, they said nothing is wrong with the installation and they recommend that we call the manufacturers to take a look instead. Urgh… If my computer is spoiled, should I call AMD (CPU), Corsair (RAM), Seagate (HDD), ASUS (MB), Nvidia (GPU), Coolermaster (Casing & PSU) or Samsung (DVD)? No right? I call the main agent and they’ll diagnose the problem and make arrangments with the relevant parties to fix it. Somehow, the industry for household applicances still isn’t very customer-oriented yet. Sure hope this situation will improve soon.

-Dear1

Oh, I just realized that I haven’t talked about our new curtains yet. Hehe… Here it is. And here is the website of the company from which we got our curtains: http://www.goldenleaf.com.sg/

The website offers a lot of information regarding curtains. There are also a lot of pictures so you can have a good idea of what each type of curtain looks like. There’s also a page on their previous projects, old and new, so u can take a look at the choice of curtains or blinds with different deco. Yup, and blinds too. There’s venetian blinds, roller blinds, roman blinds, wooden blinds, etc. All these information can be found on the website.

But nothing beats going down to their showroom to take a look. There, u can take a look at all the fabrics available and I tell u, it’s mind boggling. Too many types of materials to look at. Besides that, u can also take a look at the actual curtain or blind on display to get a better idea of how it will look like in ur home and also the mechanisms by which they operate. Just be prepared to sit down there for more than an hour to go through all the possibilities.

Next, there will be an arrangement to go to ur place to take measurements. Here, there is something to take note of. After installing our blinds, we realized that we prefered the blinds to be mounted above the window grills so that it can completely conceal the grills. However, since we didn’t know of this choice earlier, the measurements taken for our windows is for installation at the same level as the window grill, just under the beam. And there’s just this small little gap that allowed the top edge grill to be seen, which we find unsightly. So this will be something we’ve learnt and will apply the next time we ever do blinds again.

The installation is quick and sweet. About 1 hour is all it takes and no dust. Believe me, there’s practically no dust incurred for the installation. 2 holes for each of our 3 windows means 6 holes altogether and no dust. Apparently, the drill comes with a built in mini vacuum that sucks up all the dust before they disperse. Very handy, and the installation worker is good with the handling of the equipment.

For the record, we bought 2 roller blinds for the 2 bedrooms and 1 roman blind for the living room. The roller blinds were printed with large flowers to add a little flavour to our plain walls. Very nice. So far, we liked it alot. There’s a choice of the transparency of the material used for roller blinds. From very transparent to totally opaque. Choosing the totally opaque one will block out all light, meaning u can’t see outside, outside also can’t see u, very private. The wind also cannot come in and u won’t know day from night since sunlight is blocked too. We chose a semi opaque one that allows some light to pass through but only as diffused light, meaning, people outside can see the room is lit but won’t be able to see anything inside. This also allows a bit of wind to flow and helps the ventilation.

That’s it. Do consider all these factors when choosing ur curtains.

-Dear1

Dear1 and Dear2’s cosy nest is a three room flat in Bukit Batok. As of any three room flats, it is a corridor unit. In fact, almost half of Singapore’s HDB dwellers stay in corridor units, cos that’s how you save on not having to maintain so many lifts versus the inconveniences resulting from non lift-stopping levels.

The problem with corridor units is that, privacy is very much reduced, with your neigbours passing by your windows everyday. It doesn’t help if your flat belonged to the older model of corridor, where your unit is elevated from the corridor level so that the passerby’s eye level is lower than yours inside the house. The awkwardness is even more enhanced when your unit if the one nearest to the stairway. The type of windows you use become crucial then.

There are three common types of windows – the casement type, the sliding type and the louvers type, neglecting those hybrid windows such as bottom fixed and top sliding. Obviously, casement type windows are not applicable for corridor units, cos you wouldn’t want your swinging window to hit either the passerby nor yourself. Seemingly, most Singaporeans like to have sliding windows. Now, I’m talking about using that for the windows lining the corridor. Though sliding windows are considered pretty safe, but having a sliding window means that the maximum space that one can open to is only 50% of the entire window space. Not to forget that is it 50% left-right. Imagine when a neighbour walks past, “Hi” “Bye” becomes inevitable. Most flat owners then puts up midway curtains to reduce such acquaintances, thus effectively reducing the total window space to less than 25%.

The louvers window seem to be the most efficient way to optimize window space. One can close out the bottom part to retain your privacy, and leave the top louvers open to allow air movement. Depending on the panes’ configuration, the air permeability may be as high as 40%.

HDB gave us the louvers type windows when we purchased our flat, and we didn’t change it cos we wanna cut down on cost. Till now, no regrets. Even our fellow neighbour agrees that louver type windows is the most suitable kind of window for corridor units. Cheers

- Dear2